Comments on: job board owners furious over awards controversy

By: The Blacklist | Blackbird

The Blacklist | Blackbird — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:32:15 +0000

[...] you’ve ever dreamt of picking up an award for online recruitment, you might be disillusioned by this debate concerning The National Online Recruitment Awards. Prove, if ever it were needed, that recruiters [...]

By: Someone Else

Someone Else — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:46:15 +0000

Face it Stephen the whole awards are a sham you set up for personal benefit. Your site is pretty Sh8t anyway (it looks like you’ve spent about 4 minutes designing it) and most of the pages for submitting sites don’t even work – how anyone could ever think the NORA to be legit, is anyone’s guess.

Also, frankly, all the nominations on NORA are sh8t. There are some really terribly companies, who don’t deserve nominations up there – companies who happen to be in some way connected to you and your businesses. Give up the game. Accept that you are a cheat and we can all move on!

By: Alex Hens

Alex Hens — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:41:48 +0000

I’m not so sure it’s corrupt either. By I think you have to question the integrity of these “awards”, both in regards to the long “shortlisting” that’s a regular feature (a real ticket seller and friend maker that one), and the decisions arrived at. I approach it from the Employer Website element and have to say – yet again – these NORA awards continue to underwhelm and antagonize me.

After the 2007 results I was at a loss (and commented as much on http://www.DigitalRecruiting.co.uk) how anyone worth their judging salt could arrive at the decision that a decent effort, but still a fundamentally flawed site, for West Midlands Police could win Best Employer Website over the hugely impressive Royal Navy site. We all know that the budgets involved are so far apart as to warrant a different category for the Armed Forces sites it’s true – but when you hold one up against the other then there’s simply no competition (especially when you consider a PlodCast section (cleverest thing about the site was this quirky naming IMHO) with not a single podcast available within it to download!).

Then we’re onto this year’s shortlist and I find all of them dull dull dull. Perhaps NORA judges are looking for something different to myself – but I have this, perhaps quirky, feeling that awards should be awarded for “best in class”, not just “quite good”. We’re living in a world where rich media and true creative engagement is not just possible but all around us – so flat careers sections with an animated button or two just shouldn’t be held up as anything other than “awright” or a “decent effort”.

Now I don’t profess to have my finger on the industry pulse for best work coming out, but I do know there’s far far better out there. Perhaps the problem is how NORA draw up their shortlist, maybe they’re not seeing the full picture either – but however you cut it for any of these to win “Best Employer Website 2008″ will do the Recruitment Communications industry a massive disservice in regards to the strides we have made with creative digital execution.

By: Stephen O'Donnell

Stephen O'Donnell — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:59:22 +0000

This is categorically not an admission of guilt! Quite the reverse. The quote that you show has been written in plain English, and states clearly that no website is favoured for reasons other than how well it matches the NORAs stated criteria.

There is not now, nor has there ever been even a whiff of corruption regarding the UK National Online Recruitment Awards.

By: 081002 Daily Links (Oct 02, 2008) | johnsumser.com: Recruiting News and Views

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:56:06 +0000

[...] job board owners furious over awards controversyCheezhead is starting to notice that our industry’s award granting process is corrupt. [...]